0 notifications total

Feed detail update

Promote this post to reach people who matter to you.
Boost
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link
What do you think about angel investors in India who claim to be solving for more than just the top 1% and are looking for new ideas?

From an Angel Investor's post:

"
If you’re building in a ‘not so obvious’ space, I would love to hear from you.
.
.
.

You aren’t just solving for the top 1% of India — because the next leg of India’s growth will be, and has to be, more inclusive.
"

My Question:

I have one question regarding their idea validation.

Let’s take the example of Uber’s pitch deck in 2008.

Imagine you are in 2008 — just two years after the iPhone was launched. Very few people knew about the App Store or Play Store. No one knew whether live geo-location tracking of a moving car was practical, or whether an unknown, untrained cab driver could help people reach their destination safely without accidents. No one knew how to position cabs on a city map to keep them available throughout the city without crowding in areas with higher fares, how to incentivize drivers, or how to calculate traffic and fare prices in real time.

Imagine Travis (the founder of Uber) came to you with this pitch deck. It would have sounded 100% gibberish if you weren’t aware of at least two of the technologies involved.

This is a typical case of a revolutionary startup idea — it is always made up of two or more sub-ideas.

No one can psychologically process these two sub-ideas within a few minutes to come up with a “Yes” or “No.”

How do you tackle this problem of validation?

Reply from the Angel Investor:

At a very early stage, you can’t always ask for validation of the idea. Hence, the earliest bets are more on the founders and their ability to execute and pivot as needed, rather than just the idea itself. At this stage, you are betting on a founder’s ability to execute and adapt if needed, more than on the idea and its validation.

Question:

What kind of people does this criterion exclude, and what kind of people does it include, according to the current socioeconomic realities of India?

If this criterion includes mostly privileged people (the top 2-5%), then how will they be able to solve the problems of the underprivileged 95% better than US universities/companies that study India scientifically if both aren't interested to interact the consumers directly ?

Do we not need underprivileged people involved in solving problems for underprivileged people?

How can privileged people stay motivated to solve the problems of the underprivileged for a longer duration in order to achieve meaningful impact ?

IndianAngelInvestors Solving4RealIndia DifficultQuestions
1,360 impressions
View analytics


View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
(edited)
Vikrant Agarwal What do you think about Indian angel investors trying to invest in startups that are solving problems faced by Indians who aren’t part of the top 1-5%?
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
Vikrant Agarwal Sir, my question was: “These angel investors are trying to solve the problems of Bharat without involving people from Bharat — the bottom 95% — in the mainstream. Is the representation of 95% of India’s population necessary or optional?”
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
(edited)
Vikrant Agarwal Sir, this is the topic of discussion that should be in the mainstream, and it’s a very relevant question because, in entrepreneurship, over the period of years, “motivation” and “intentions” often overpower “skills,” “talent,” and “knowledge.” This is because people who are behind generally catch up, and business is not rocket science where you’re inventing something that has never been invented before (we have academia for that). Moreover, angel investing is fundamentally long-term which makes this question more relevant.
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
Syamala Oruganti I don't believe they are against 95% of folks either, but Indians are really bad at understanding the "logistics" of any problem. They want to attach the cart before the bullock. For angel investors, they need to understand India before solving its problems. How many have spent time learning about the real issues of India? And in the case of the 95%, our government also hides the data (though there are methods to obtain it through population studies). That's my main concern. Indian angel investors aren't realising that U.S. angel investors have Ivy League university backing for data and research, which Indian investors don't. They can't behave like American Angels and that's why almost entire market is filled with foreign money and most of the angels in India lost money, time and energy with no sufficient learning and this is very hard to digest.
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
When we think of startups_in_India, we need to ask a few fundamental questions:

Q1. Where is our William Shockley (intelligent scientist), and where are our transistors (deep technology)?

Q2. Where is our Sherman Fairchild (investor who understands research), who has both money and insight into research?

Q3. Where is our Robert Noyce (trustworthy person who understands science and commerce) who can understand research and lead people from the front?

Bill Gates & Steve Jobs: Privilege, Creativity, and Capitalism (Part 3/3)

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/yashp2411_robertnoyce-siliconvalley-moore-activity-7382000281221332992-9E7B

How the "Traitorous Eight" Founded Silicon Valley | Yash Pratap posted on the topic | LinkedIn

Bill Gates & Steve Jobs: Privilege, Creativity, and Capitalism (Part 3/3) Robert Noyce did his PhD in Physics from MIT in 1953 and later started working at William Shockley’s Semiconductor Laboratory in 1956. William Shockley, who co-invented the...
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
View Syamala Oruganti’s graphic link

Syamala Oruganti • 1st

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Temple Times Wedding & Event Solution
Yash Pratap

You didn't get my point.

It's always a business and for profit. I understand that deep tech involving large capital outlays may not usually deliver any revenues till after a few rounds of capital infusion. Some may even get acquired by others eventually without even hitting a single dollar revenue.

If X founder is not getting funded, it's not because investors don't understand the value of that proposition. It is because they have no trust in the execution capability of that founder.

I saw this over and over in my long years of experience. So don't be guided by Google or Uber that were founded on the basis of a Pitch deck. Today you need to showcase beyond that pitch deck your skin in the game in order to convince any investor.
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
(edited)
Syamala Oruganti I know what you're talking about. I just want to say that Angel investors can't overcome systematic socioeconomic barriers on their own by money itself. They need to put extra efforts if they want to solve for India's 95% and our economy and educational institutions and political incentives aren't aligned to serve bottom 95% so Angel need to work extra hard if they're genuinely interested.

I’m just saying that Silicon Valley rules can’t be applied in India — neither for the founders nor for the investors.
View Syamala Oruganti’s graphic link

Syamala Oruganti • 1st

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Temple Times Wedding & Event Solution
Yash Pratap

Don't go by the bookkish definition of Angels solving world's problems Yash. Angels are the ones who come in at the very early stage of any startup for two reasons. They have experience and expertise in the field where the startup exists and they are convinced about the idea and the founder's ability to execute.

They are there purely to make money in a field which they possibly love.
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
(edited)
Syamala Oruganti this is one of the worse way to make money from "finance perspective" because in ideal case silicon valley. Only 14/100 startups survive from seed to series A (50 years of Silicon Valley dataset: Sabastian) and in case of India it's much worse than that because of structural issues. Money is one of the financial tools and early stage start-up is worse financial investment and this only works well if VC invest in 100 startups over period of 8 years then it gives return of 20-100X which is impossible in normal cases.

This discussion was primarily tilted towards people who claim : they want to solve for India (we need to consider that instead of neglecting it as a pure lie)
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
Syamala Oruganti this is just mainstream Indian perspective on Angel investment copied from the west because their startup ecosystem developed after structural economic reforms and basic development. Indian angel investors can't copy it blindly if they want to solve problems of India because in India people don't have access to basics, they need to actively seek founder also and they need to develop criteria based on Indian demography if they want to solve India's problems.
View Syamala Oruganti’s graphic link

Syamala Oruganti • 1st

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Temple Times Wedding & Event Solution
WOW!

It's 100% true that validation of ideas isn't always possible. This is exactly why investors bet big only on the founders, their history and lineage etc. IIT IIMs steal the spot here as the validation is already there about their Intelligence and problem solving abilities.

Now your question about the rest of the unfortunate or not so fortunate masses other than this privileged class. This is where the validation is expected to come from the proposed target customers via an MVP at least. Some go even a step further and insist on a steady paying customers too. It's very rare that an idea by itself will get funding unless you are a marquee founder having already had a few successful exits or with an excellent academic record from prestigious institutions and/or worked in large companies of high repute in relevant positions.

The grind is tough. I was approached by someone with a very good idea and a pitch deck. Ask? 12 cr plus another 10 cr back up. 🤷

And he has no clear plan of execution nor any super credentials. He promised to share his plan and financials 3 weeks ago, immediately. 😂

This is the state of many founders. They read stories on SM about millions of dollars being raised and start going around with ideas.
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
(edited)
Syamala Oruganti There is a big problem with education itself when it comes to startups and why they exist in the first place. The reason is Deep Tech because it helps people double their investment.

One Deep Tech can solve 100 problems, and for 100 problems, you need 100 startups. Deep Tech doesn't mean only silicon chips; it means operating systems or many other things that help us build stuff.

The question should be which Deep Tech is involved, whether it’s owned by you or not — because Deep Tech is the element of a startup that gives exponential returns.

If people are just naming their business a startup, then it's a very different game altogether.

Neither the founders nor the angel investors know the right questions; they just pretend because our country has taken education for granted.
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
Syamala Oruganti Startup is not a business but it's a phase of a business from seed to Series A primarily because after that if you aren't able to convert it into traditional business than it's not ready for the market.

You can get the outcome without knowing "Why" but this is the reason "Why we aren't able to solve the problems"

But if we measure startup from "financial perspective" than we can say we have 100 unicorns and people know what they are doing very well but from the perspective of problem solving, there is a big serious problem because we skipped that part and we can skip it, there is no compulsion for company to solve the real problems.
View Balraj Kapini’s open to work graphic link

Balraj Kapini • 1st

Communication that moves you into action | Copywriter | Communication Strategist | Cartoonist | Visual Scriber | Teacher
Two things have to happen in my view:
First, government, investors and commerce bodies have to prioritise for the whole of the economy and not be selfish or skewed in their approach to problem solving.
This would mean devolution of control, spur entrepreneurships of more divergent variety and create an atmosphere of healthy experimentation and competition.

Second, build confidence in people who dare to become entrepreneurs. Motivate them to fail forward and create safety nets for those who fail.
Right now the risk appetite amongst Indians is very low. And those who risk it are forced to serve a narrow market range in the top 1 or 2 %.

It’s as much a top-down approach as it’s a bottom-up one.
View Martin Jay’s graphic link

Martin Jay • 2nd

Marketing Communication
Enterprise and innovations should not always tied to capital availablity and angels-centric. The bargaining power of majrity has come down drastically, both economically as well as politically. Recent elections have shown how vicious anti-democratic forces can get. I guess markets still have traces of democracy. Two things may be needed: Businesses should seek alternate modes of funding away from the clutches of big capital. Secondly, they have to partake in pro-democracy initiatives. I mean people should learn to identify and avoid anti-democratic businesses. What politics has failed to achieve, economics can enforce sometimes. Consumers should ruthlessly avoid businesses supporting dictatorships and cronyism.
View Yash Pratap’s graphic link

Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
(edited)
Martin Jay Great, we need to create better institutions and better methods for capital deployment. I don't think consumer can do anything because if cronies own the machinery which produces the products then consumer can't do anything. All they can do is tax them which can't be done without supporting right political parties. So, these are the problem of democracy fundamentally and these things mostly happens when people support some extremists ideology Govt.